Aldon Smith cut by 49ers; no more second chances

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith watches from the sidelines during the second half of an NFL preseason football game last year. His stint with the 49ers came to an end after the team released him on Friday after his fifth arrest.

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith watches from the...

The 49ers very terrible 2015 continued on Friday morning, which broke with an all-too familiar story. Aldon Smith, their star pass rusher, was arrested again. For alleged driving under the influence, hit-and-run and vandalism.

A few hours later, Smith — at one time considered the best young pass rusher in the league — was released from the team.

This all comes within days of head coach Jim Tomsula and general manager Trent Baalke speaking of Smith with strong praise for their troubled linebacker. “I respect the road he’s on,” Tomsula said.

Baalke echoed that thought, saying that he was very pleased with the way Smith had handled things. And then, on the team’s first day off since training camp opened on Saturday, Smith was arrested yet again.

Friday’s arrest marked the fifth time Smith, 25, has either been arrested or charged with a crime. He was suspended for nine games last season, stemming from his 2013 arrest.

When he was released from Santa Clara County jail on Friday morning, after posting $26,000 bail, Smith claimed there was “no DUI….I apologize to everybody I did let down.”

No DUI? We’ll find out. But Smith doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt in any incident involving the police. Not now. Not ever again, at least with the 49ers.

A emotional Tomsula stood at the podium shortly after Smith’s release and said that the team will continue to support Smith and that he will not “walk alone.”

“From our perspective there are things he needs to to address things with 100 percent of everything he has,” Tomsula said.

Will some other team pick up Smith? Just ask Greg Hardy. But Smith will likely face a full year suspension by the NFL, so his future career is in doubt.

This is a sad story, with the only silver lining that Smith didn’t kill anyone. Except his career. The 49ers — who fired Jim Harbaugh because he didn’t “win with class” — couldn’t keep Smith in the fold. Not after they set precedent last season, firing Ray McDonald within hours of a second police investigation, after staunchly defending him in his first arrest on domestic violence allegations. Not after they proclaimed their class-first mantra.

This, sadly, doesn’t come as a total shock. The 49ers have enabled Smith for his entire career. After his last DUI, in September 2013, Smith was back at practice hours after being bailed out of jail and played every defensive snap the next Sunday. All fingers pointed at Harbaugh for those transgressions.

Smith later went into rehab and missed five games, but most experts believed that wasn’t nearly enough time to make a recovery. He had another incident at Los Angeles International Airport in the offseason, when bystanders believed he was drunk. There have been anecdotal stories, unconfirmed, of Smith being out drinking in the community over the past two years.

In the 2014 offseason, I was told by a front office source that the 49ers would absolutely not be picking up Smith’s option year for 2015, preferring to let him work in 2014 without any future security. A few weeks later, that course was reversed and they picked up his 2015 contract. He missed nine games and was ineffectual for most of the rest of the 49ers‘ 2014 season, one more disappointment in the midst of many.

This offseason, the 49ers gave clues that they didn’t fully believe that Smith had been rehabilitated, by restructuring his contract into a bonus-driven contract. Basically willing to bet on himself, Smith accepted a series of monthly roster bonuses. Bad bet, Aldon. The contract made it that much easier for the 49ers to cut him loose.

The 49ers long stretch of dysfunction continues. The 49ers — both publicly and privately — have insinuated that Harbaugh was the cause of most of their problems. That he didn’t hold players accountable. That he wasn’t concerned about “winning with class.” That it was because of him that the 49ers image had taken a hit.